So Damn Beautiful (A New Adult Romance) (20 page)

As we moved through the tunnel, on a narrow
ledge of platform, I could feel Chase’s hand on my shoulder. “You
okay?” he asked. “You’ve been silent for the past few minutes.”

I smiled at him, although his face was
shadowy in the darkness. “That was incredible. I still don’t know
how you make your way through this maze. Do you follow a trail of
bread crumbs or something?”

He chuckled. “Amazingly enough, between the
five of us, we have a sense of direction that’s better than GPS.”
He paused. “Nobody does this much anymore, but subway graffiti is
part of a vital legacy. I’m glad you got to see it.”

I could feel the heat of his body near mine.
His hand snaked up to the nape of my neck, then made its way to the
small of my back. I could feel him pulling me closer, which made my
knees go weak. My tongue felt dry and lifeless in my mouth, even
though everything in me was arching toward Chase—toward the warmth
of his hand on me, the sweetness of his breath, the hardness of his
body.

And that was when I heard it: a clacking
rumble in the distance. Only it wasn’t in the very far distance,
because a stream of golden light was tumbling in from around the
corner and was beaming straight at us. The ground beneath our feet
was wet and slick, and in my disorientation, I could feel myself
slipping . . . right from the dark and narrow platform we were on
and into the track bed.

I screamed as I heard and felt the train
clattering toward us. My heart was in my throat, and if I hadn’t
been completely petrified, I probably would have fainted.

“Annie, watch out!” Chase yelled.

I squeezed my eyes shut, but before the train
could get to me, Chase grabbed my arm and pulled me up against the
wall, pinioning me in place with his body as the train, which was
probably just a foot away from us, rattled past. I could feel my
teeth knocking around in my skull as I clung to the narrow lip of
platform that separated us from the train.

“Whatever you do, don’t move!” Chase
yelled.

I nodded and clung to him for what felt like
an eternity. But after a couple minutes, the train was out of sight
and earshot.

“What happened, yo? You guys get stuck in
that?” Reynaldo yelled from ahead of us. He and the other three
were peering out, concerned, from a passageway that forked off from
the narrow platform Chase and I had been on.

“We’re all right, man!” Chase yelled, as we
clambered up to the tunnel where his friends were. “I wasn’t
expecting that train to come by for at least another twenty
minutes.”

Entropy shrugged. “It’s the MTA, man. Public
transportation doesn’t give a fuck about schedules!”

Luckily, we were just a few yards away from
where we’d originally set out, and I could feel myself breathe a
huge sigh of relief as we sidled off the walkway and onto the track
bed of the lit-up subway station. There still wasn’t another soul
in sight, thank goodness. I could practically feel the soot on my
clothes from the dark and dusty passageways, and I certainly didn’t
want to be scrutinized by confused strangers.

As Chase jumped back onto the platform and
turned around to hoist me up, I could tell from his pale face that
the train had shaken him, too. “Hey, if you wanna crash here
tonight,” he offered awkwardly. “I mean, Rowena has a spare room
and all. . . .”

I shook my head and tried to smile. “No, I
think I’ll just get a cab home.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You sure? It’s been a
long night.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I really need to get back
for classes tomorrow.”

He looked at me, as if uncertain of whether
or not to say what he was going to say next. “Annie, I . . .”

I looked at him expectantly. After that
intense moment we’d had, prior to the train’s coming along to
interrupt it, I had no idea what was going through his mind right
now.

But he just gave me that heart-melting grin
of his. “That was fucking insane, wasn’t it?” he said.

I could feel myself regaining my senses.
“Yeah, you could say that again.” I smiled at him. “But mostly it
was kind of epic. Thanks for letting me
tag
along.” I smiled
at my pun.

He groaned at the lame joke, but his eyes
were dancing. “Anytime, Goldilocks.”

As we headed up to street level, I could feel
my shakiness and disorientation subside. But when I pressed my head
against a cab window minutes later, my mind couldn’t help but
backtrack to those precious and all-too-brief moments of feeling
Chase’s hands on my body, pulling me tighter and closer. I closed
my eyes and drifted off into a half-awake, half-asleep state in
which I had delicious visions of what might have come next had the
train not happened along.

My head felt like someone had shot a cannon through it, even though
I wouldn’t exactly say I was hungover, since I’d mainly pretended
to drink from the giant red plastic cups Chase’s friends had
continually placed into my hands over the course of last night. The
pure rush of being with Chase, steeped in his world—which seemed so
shadowy, dangerous, and romantic—had been almost too much for a
reasonably prudent midwestern girl to handle.

My thoughts were racing with all the stimuli
of last night, which felt like it was running amok in my body like
a virus timed to a break beat. I was almost proud of myself as I
remembered my escapade in the subway, immersed in the pitch black,
the sounds of trains clattering by in uncomfortably close
proximity, belly-down on the cold and slimy concrete, with only
Chase’s hand pressed into the small of my back for guidance.

If he hadn’t been there, I wouldn’t be
alive
, I thought. Of course, had he not been there, I probably
wouldn’t have had the guts to be so intrepid—and foolish. But all
the same, my night in the Bronx had been eye-opening. The sounds,
the smells, the music . . . I’d never have imagined feeling such an
affinity for what I’d always considered the seedier and less
refined elements of New York City, but there was an unmistakable
soulfulness in the midst of all the grit. Even Chase’s friends, who
had struck me as gruff and somewhat crude at first, had caught my
interest. As rude and brash as they came off, their smoothness and
grace in the midst of what had to have been the most terrifying
encounter of my life spoke volumes about them. I could almost see
them now, quiet and earnest as we made our mark in the bowels of
the subway.

I felt like I had been privy to a mystical
ritual. It was almost like when you turn off harsh overhead lights
that bear down so brightly on something that they make it garish
and frightening, and then, in the dim moonlight, you start to see
it in its fullness and beauty. I wasn’t used to having my
preconceptions so aggressively checked, but then again, I always
enjoyed being surprised.

As Kendra and I ate lunch in Washington
Square Park, I kept thinking back to specific moments and
sensations. The reverberations of the train tracks sending shock
waves through my body as Chase transformed the concrete wall into a
scene as stunning as ancient cave drawings. The echoes of his
friends’ voices in the darkness. The sound of water
drip-drip-dripping down the walls, as if we were in some kind of
subterranean cavern. I felt like I was part of a secret society, a
band of urban renegades going fearlessly where very few people had
the imagination to go. And all for the sake of
art
! Now,
that was something to marvel at.

“But it’s not art, not really,” I said out
loud, inadvertently.

Kendra had been speaking animatedly about
Yannis—something about plans to visit his family in Athens over
winter break. I was happy that things were progressing so well in
her relationship, but my head felt like giant cockroaches were
eating it from the inside out. I rubbed my temples.

Kendra took a giant bite out of her veggie
burger and looked at me, her eyes slightly narrowed. “You haven’t
been listening to a word I’ve been saying, have you, Green?”

I smiled apologetically. “Sorry, lady. I
didn’t get enough sleep last night, so I’m totally not running on
all cylinders right now.”

She shook her head. “This is what happens
when my best friend gets a boyfriend. Guess I’ll have to start
talking to brick walls from now on, eh? But enough of me—I want
some details, woman! You didn’t come back to the room till five
a.m.!”

“Seriously? I thought it was earlier,” I
mumbled.

“Don’t worry, I won’t give you a lecture, but
I do expect an account rated no less than PG-13. So what happened,
Annie? Did you hit that?”

I paused. For a second, I thought about
putting a dent in Kendra’s assumptions and telling her about my
incredible night with Chase and his friends. But my intuition told
me that she wouldn’t understand or approve. Kendra wasn’t my mom,
so I wasn’t exactly afraid of her criticism. I knew that she
approved of my commissioning Chase for the Quentin Pierce show
(“Milk the bastard for what it’s worth—he’s hot right now, so might
as well hop on that bandwagon and take advantage of his status,”
she’d said matter-of-factly), but I highly doubted she’d approve of
my hanging out with him until the wee hours of morning, squirreling
around in subways and avoiding near misses with oncoming trains.
Kendra came across as more worldly than I was, but I knew she had
grown up in a similarly sheltered environment. The bad boy might
have looked hot in a pair of snug jeans, but only from a safe
distance.

The message I’d received, hands down, in my
short time here was that certain ways of being in the world just
didn’t mix. I was still Annie Green, aspiring curator and
straight-A student. And as hot as Chase might have been on the art
circuit, his reputation when interacting with the public wasn’t
exactly sterling, and I knew Kendra was keenly aware of this. I
wanted to avoid unnecessary drama, so it made sense to stay on the
down-low about things that seemed uncharacteristic of me. There was
no point in making my friends worry.

Kendra was still staring at me, an impatient
look on her face. I ran my fingers through my hair. “It was, um,
nice.”

“OMG, you guys totally did it, didn’t you? So
what the hell happened? Was it good? Did he have a big . . . you
know?”

I rolled my eyes. “We didn’t do it. We just
hung out and talked.”

“For eight hours?” She groaned. “Annie, I was
positive you’d be knocking boots with Harrison. He’s soooo into
you. What is he—some kind of Bible-thumping, abstinence-only
guy?”

“No, we just . . . I want to take it slow,” I
said, not really in the mood to justify my imaginary sex life while
my head felt like a machete was chopping it apart.

Kendra frowned, and I could have sworn she
was going to call me out on some detail I’d stupidly forgotten to
leave out in my slightly dazed and hungover state. But the mood
seemed to pass quickly. “Suit yourself,” she said, taking another
hunk out of her beet-and-cashew patty. “You know I’m not all about
getting freaky until you know you have something real. I’ve heard
way too many stories about roofies and frat parties and gross
hookups with nasty guys, so if you wanna be picky, more power to
you!”

Soon enough, she was back to Yannis—how cute
he was, how sexy his accent sounded even when she didn’t know
exactly what he was saying, and how she felt like he could
really
be the one this time. I was relieved to be talking
about her life, for once, even though I felt a little guilty about
not disclosing what had
really
taken place last night.

As Kendra went on to describe her boyfriend’s
endearing particularities, I felt my mind drifting again . . . from
my friend’s words to the lulling splay of autumn leaves on the
sidewalks around the quad . . . to the sensation of Chase’s hand
pressing, almost insistently, into the small of my back, then into
the hair at the nape of my neck, drawing me closer without even
seeming to try, like I was a magnet sticking to metal.

I closed my eyes and imagined the dark and
luscious possibilities, everything that could have happened had I
given in to the pull, allowed myself to be sucked into the darkness
of that subway, the darkness behind Chase’s clear green eyes—which
felt like the promise of a tropical tempest on a perfectly sunny
day. I shivered despite myself. Perhaps it had been for the best,
after all, even if a startlingly strong part of me felt the sting
of disappointment that nothing had transpired last night.

“Annie? Annie Green! Are you frickin’ falling
asleep on me?”

Kendra’s voice brought me back to
reality.

“Are you even listening to me? Or are you too
busy thinking about Mr. Dreamy to help me figure out what I’m
wearing next week in the Hamptons with Yannis? The Weather Channel
says we might have a major storm, so what does that mean? You
could, like, sport a sundress and a surfboard year-round where I
grew up. It’s so complicated here.”

I frowned, still stuck on the “Mr. Dreamy”
comment. “Why would I be thinking about
Chase
?” I snapped,
balling up a paper napkin as snapshots from last night flashed
through my head.

Kendra looked confused. “What the hell are
you talking about? Chase
Adams
? Who said anything about
Chase Adams? I was talking about your boyfriend, silly!” She paused
for a second. “But . . .
should
I be talking about Chase? I
mean . . . you weren’t . . . last night . . .” Her eyes widened in
alarm. “Oh shit, Annie! Were you with
Chase
, not Harrison,
last night?”

The contents of my stomach started to roll
around and lurch in response. There was no way I could lie to
Kendra, but I wasn’t about to tell her the truth, either, so I did
the next-best thing—I deflected. I clutched my belly and moaned
ever so slightly. Given the fact that I was as healthy as a horse,
Kendra’s expression quickly changed from one of chastisement to one
of concern.